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KEEPING OUR LOVE WARM was Captain & Tennille's final release from their hit-making heyday. Featuring a mix of Tennille originals and covers, this disc proves Toni Tennille to be on a level with other legendary female singer/songwriters. The smooth title track kicks things off and covers of Isaac Hayes and David Porter's "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" and Stevie Wonder's sublime "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" are included, as is a new version of "Gentle Stranger," a tune originally released on their "Love Will Keep Us Together" debut LP in 1975. First time on CD, digitally remastered with new 2005 liner notes by Toni Tennille.

About the Artist

Keyboardist / arranger / producer Daryl "The Captain" Dragon and singer / pianist Toni Tennille became one of the most successful pop music duos of all-time as Captain & Tennille. The husband and wife team kicked off their recording career in style when their debut single Love Will Keep Us Together went straight to # 1 and won the 1975 Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The hits kept flowing with more top 40 singles, including The Way I Want to Touch You, Shop Around, Lonely Night (Angel Face,) Muskrat Love, Cant Stop Dancin, You Never Done It Like That and another chart-topper in 1980 with Toni Tennilles Do That To Me One More Time.

The couple met in 1971, when Dragon was the keyboard player for a musical revue composed by Tennille. Daryl is the son of conductor Carmen Dragon and his mother was a singer. In 1967, he was playing and touring with the Beach Boys - where he was dubbed "Captain Keyboard" by lead singer Mike Love for always wearing a captains hat on-stage. Additionally, he appeared on a few Beach Boys albums of the period.

Toni Tennille, born Cathryn Antoinette Tennille  is the daughter of Frank Tennille, a big-band singer and Cathryn Tennille, who became a local television talk-show host. In 1965 Toni moved to California and became involved in theater, which led to her toward writing music for the ecologically minded revue, Mother Earth. The show was performed in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where Dragon joined the band. After it closed, Dragon returned to the Beach Boys and arranged to have Tennille hired as a pianist and backup singer. "Captain Keyboard" and the "Beach Girl" toured with the Beach Boys for a year, while becoming romantically involved. The couple was married shortly thereafter and began performing in Los Angeles clubs as a duo called Captain & Tennille.

In September 1973, they financed their own recording, Tennilles composition of The Way I Want to Touch You and released it on their own Butterscotch Castle label. The song earned significant airplay in Los Angeles and the duo was signed by A&M Records. For their major-label debut they covered the Neil Sedaka/Howard Greenfield tune Love Will Keep Us Together. The song quickly went to number 1 on the Billboard charts, and the rest is pretty much pop-music history.

Amidst a continual flurry of hit songs, 1976 also brought the Captain & Tennilles weekly television show, which only lasted one season. In 1979, Captain & Tennille left A&M for Casablanca records, a move that placed them atop the Billboard Hot 100 once again, this time with Tonis song Do That To Me One More Time.

Toni Tennille continues on with a solo career as a singer of traditional pop, performing with big bands and symphonies and has released numerous solo recordings to the praise of critics. Shes also become involved in stage musicals, having starred in the touring company of Victor/Victoria. Daryl Dragon continues to produce Tonis and Captain & Tennille records and he also ran Rumbo Recorders, the recording studio they built in Los Angeles in 1979  and sold in 2003. These days theres no place like home for the couple, as they much prefer their own surroundings to life on the road. Now, 30 years after their chart debut theyve recorded two new holiday songs, Saving Up Christmas and Tahoe Snow.

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After a pretty much five year stint with huge popular success Captain & Tennille decided to give their career a temporary sebatical. Even though most of their big hits came from their years on A&M their final two albums on Cassablanca were soulful and melodic affairs that took a decidedly different musical turn. Up until the album Make Your Move it might've been all too easy to dismiss Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennile's music as a very upbeat variant on easy listening pop. After the label change Dragon's keyboard playing became slipprier and Toni dipped more and more into her Southern roots musically. By the time this album came out in 1980 the duo were not only in the midst of doing their own TV show but since they figured their days might be numbered as the new decade arrived to go for the gusto and remind their audience that popular music such as the kind they did automatically embraced many different styles rather than alienate them. Here the pair become a deeply soulful R&B and lite funk act where none of the music could even come close to being interpreted as cheesy or out of sync musically with it's environment. Even the cover choices on this album would seem to indicate the obvious shift in priorities. The warm title track begins the album with a quiet storm styled ballad featuring some nicely produced electronic effects. You get the same thing on "Gentle Stranger","This Is Not The First Time" and "Don't Forget Me" These songs have grea melodies and are a potent reminder that because of the genre's inherant demands and sophisticated structuring that soul is a great baseline rhythmic and harmonic structure for even a slow pop ballad such as these. Now on a version of the Stevie Wonder penned "Until You Come Back To Me" and the original "But I Think It's A Dream" Toni really turns up her southern soul sister voice up to maximum and Dragon throws on the sophistifunk on THICK with his sleekly mixed electric pianos,synthesizers and some appealing use of a drum computer. In the last days of disco as it were sophistifunk was the way to go for anyone looking to do a mid to uptempo pop tune with a strong soul/funk influence without being blacklisted. This also comes together ona surprising instrumental cover of Horace Silver's classic "Song For My Father". The song is carried by the always brilliant (and often used) Paulinho Da Costa's percussive sounds in a very potent late 70's/early 80's sophisticated jazz-funk arrangement which is particularly brilliant in the bridge where Dragon's keyboard riffs go from electric piano sounds to gospel organs to synthesized electronics with each and every pause,literally trading off with himself like a one man band. The album concludes with a cover of the Hayes/Porter southern bluesy soul classic "Your Good Thing (Is About To End)" where a horn section consisting of an alto,tenor and even a bass saxaphone are all harmonizing together along with Toni's vocals for a deepness to the music. Even if this is more or less the last note for Captain & Tennille all that one can say is that at least the heavy R&B/funk leanings of the previous album weren't a fluke and that,if they'd wished to continue on their new direction would've really given them a lot of extra mileage.

I am thrilled to have this CD that I thought could never be found again!!! Many years ago I was given the LP by a dear friend, and through the years it was damaged and no longer useable. Thank you so much!!!

Continuing on the same pop & adult contemporary track of Captain & Tennille's MAKE YOUR MOVE (Casablanca, 1979), this album features superb music production and an incredibly soulful performance on vocals by Toni.

With plenty of guitar, piano, bass, and drums--in addition to an emphasis on musical solos--this album underscores the fact that Captain & Tennille were taking risks and exploring rock and blues. Toni wrote 5 of the 9 songs on this album. Her versatility as a song-writer is astounding on this album: the style varies from pure pop (title track) to sexy and sultry ("But I Think It's A Dream") to an all-out rock tune ("This Is Not The First Time").

Surprise cuts: "Since I Fell For You" is heart-achingly beautiful. Toni Tennille takes the listener on an emotional journey. It features great saxophone throughout which compliments Toni's soulful reading of this classic. Also remarkable is "This Is Not The First Time" which almost sounds like an offering from Heart, with its "straight on" guitar licks.

Had it been promoted at all by Casablanca Records & Tapes, this album would have produced some major chart hits and would have exposed the world to the post-"Muskrat Love" Captain & Tennille.

One of my favorite cuts on this album is the Tennille-penned "Don't Forget Me": another soulful performance by Toni that truly affects the listener with a image of love gone wrong.

"Keeping Our Love Warm" was the Captain & Tennille's sixth major label release in the US, and overall it was their most sophisticated recording. The album didn't hit the charts, which is surprising, given that Toni Tennille was hosting her own talk show at the time it was released and that they had just had major chart success with their previous album, "Make Your Move." I remember reading the People magazine review of this record; it was described as "nicely varied." That it is. You get a sampling of Tennille's love of standards with a beautiful rendition of "Since I Fell For You," punctuated by a sensuous saxophone solo. And Tennille's original songs are the highlights of the album, especially "But I Think It's A Dream" and a lush remake of "Gentle Stranger" (originally on their first album). Ironically, the album's final song, "Your Good Thing (Is About To End)" was a sad premonition of the end of their recording career (except for sporadic recordings here and there) but it's still a terrific performance.